The Convention People\u2019s Party\u2019s (CPP) plan to make the commercial cultivation of the African tropical almond tree the backbone of the economy is not feasible, Policy Think Tank, Imani Ghana has stated.<\/p>\n
The party\u2019s flagbearer, Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, at the Institute of Economic Affairs\u2019 (IEA) Evening Encounter series, suggested that the cultivation of the tropical almond tree could earn\u00a0the country as much as US$ 300 billion in revenue.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”djo9l4s864lFXK8AagPfFqaieDqa2VZu”]But at a forum on the assessment of the major promises made by political parties ahead of the polls, IMANI Ghana indicated that he CPP\u2019s promise is not viable as issues of funding, land mass, timelines and climate have not been taken into consideration.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the ambiguous timelines in the CPP’s promise, a researcher at IMANI, Stefan Reppen said the almond dream \u201cis most likely if you don\u2019t consider any time periods\u2026 but in a reasonable time period, it seems highly unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Reppen also questioned the $300 billion target saying “If you look at the US, they produce 80 percent of the world\u2019s supply and US exports in 2014, a year with exceptionally high prices on almond, the export value from the US to the rest of the world was $4.5 billion.”<\/p>\n
\u201cWith these figures, making some extreme assumptions, it would still take more than 50 years before Ghana earns 300 billion dollars and here we assume Ghana has complete world monopoly,\u201d he\u00a0added.<\/p>\n
Problem of funding<\/strong><\/p>\n Ivor Greenstreet touted the US example as proof of such a project’s viability as the state of California is responsible for a significant amount of the exports from the US but IMANI believes the funding of this project will be a major stumbling block.<\/p>\n According to the Mr. Reppen, drawing from the US module the \u201caverage cost for pre-planting alone is $856 per acre and for total planting cost, 1471 per acre.\u00a0Converting from acre to kilometers and multiplying with the 73,000 square kilometres which is what CPP planned to set aside, this will cost in pre-planting $15.4 billion and $26.5 billion for the total planting cost.\u201d<\/p>\n He noted that the $26.5 billion figure is more than twice the total revenue in 2016 of GHc 103 billion. Thus for Mr. Reppen, \u201cthere is essentially just one question to ask; where will this money come from? We ask CPP, can you please provide us with this information,\u201d<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n Follow the hashtag #GhElections<\/strong> on social media for more election related stories<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Convention People\u2019s Party\u2019s (CPP) plan to make the commercial cultivation of the African tropical almond tree the backbone of the economy is not feasible, Policy Think Tank, Imani Ghana has stated. The party\u2019s flagbearer, Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, at the Institute of Economic Affairs\u2019 (IEA) Evening Encounter series, suggested that the cultivation of the tropical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":226331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2647,32,2648],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n